During the flight, Hicks went down to the cargo hold with flight attendant Cammy Meele to check on the priceless Alif Red statue. Hicks suspected that it had been swapped with a fake during a stopover in Zheng Fa. Unbeknownst to him, Meele was actually working undercover for the smuggling ring. When Hicks began taking pictures of the cargo hold, she panicked and pushed him off the stairs, killing him.

Trying to cover up her involvement in the Interpol agent's death, Meele attempted to frame her fellow flight attendant, Rhoda Teneiro, by using one of the (Teneiro-designed) suitcases in the cargo hold to transport the body into the elevator, and placing the victim's cellphone in Teneiro's locker. Whilst in the elevator, however, a patch of high turbulence caused the suitcase to burst open. Hicks's corpse fell out and his belongings were scattered all over the elevator floor. Changing her plan, Meele decided to make the elevator out to be the crime scene. She left the corpse where it was, cleaned the suitcase with a Borginian cloth, placed said cloth in the in-flight shop, and smeared a Mr. Ifly piggy bank from the shop cabinet with Hicks's blood to make it seem to be the murder weapon. She then placed the victim's travel wallet, which was smeared with grape juice, on a nearby passenger who had passed out in the lounge during the earlier turbulence.

The discovery of Hicks's corpse.

Unfortunately for Meele, the unconscious passenger turned out to be veteran prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, who had fainted from the turbulence due to a childhood-induced phobia of earthquakes. Despite briefly managing to pin the blame on Teneiro, Meele's plan ultimately failed as, although she had succeeded in cleaning up the crime scene, she had neglected to erase the photos on Hicks's phone. With a mixture of evidence and logic, Edgeworth was soon able to have Hicks's true killer caught and arrested.

"Akbey" may come from the Japanese word for "yawn" ("akubi"). This may be a reference to his killer, Cammy Meele. It could also be a reference to his average-looking appearance (or at least less interesting than most Ace Attorney characters), which is referenced by Zinc LaBlanc during a testimony.

The in-game image of Hicks's corpse bears a closer resemblance to his original art than the finished design, as the length of his hair is shorter than his court record image and more like his concept art. This short-hair design can also be seen in early images from the game's development.

The circumstances behind Hicks's death are very similar to those of Romein LeTouse in Turnabout Serenade. Both are Borginan Interpol agents, whose identities as such investigators didn't discover for some time after the discovery of their bodies. Both men were also murdered by smugglers and had their corpses discovered by the maincharacters of their respectivegames.